1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved handcuff and utensil for assisting users who are physically challenged when using utensils.
2) Description of Related Art
Cerebral Palsy affects approximately 764,000 children and adults and approximately 500,000 children under the age of 18. Spina Bifida affects approximately 1,500 live births. Stroke affects approximately 795,000 people each year. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) affects approximately 1.7 million people and spinal cord injury affects between 240,000 to 337,000 people. These medical conditions can cause physical disability that affects the individual's body movement, muscle control, and the function of fine motor skills such as those used to eat and drink, handle and manipulate eating utensils, and the like.
Attempts has been made to design utensils and tools, such as forks and spoons, to assist these affected individuals with feeding themselves and other tasks. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,075,975 is directed to an Eating Utensil For The Manually Impaired And General Public and discloses a utensil that includes a handle which permits the person's index finger and palm to be supported entirely along the upper surface of the utensil.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,190 is directed to an Expanded Implement Handle Grip that is a handle grip for placing over an implement handle of a spoon, fork, knife, toothbrush, hand tool, or the like which has improved concave features within the hollow, interior space. These concave features, which include, but are not limited to dimples, grooves, spiral grooves, indentations, impressions, channels, depressions, hollows, slits, and the like, to permit the implement handle to be easily inserted into the grip, but nevertheless more effectively held by the expanded implement handle grip while being employed by a user with limited dexterity or strength.
United States Patent Application Publication 2008/0178471 is directed to a Novel Handle And Hand Held Utensils that includes a handle having a support for the internal and external parts of the user hand via an aperture in the center that surrounds the user hand.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,373,643 is directed to an Enhanced Eating Implements For A Handicapped Person and includes a first connecting member connected at one end of the gripping member to one end of the barrier member. A second connecting member releasably connects another end of the gripping member to another end of the barrier member. A hand insertion port is formed by an inner perimeter of the gripping member, the barrier member, the first connecting member, and the second connecting member. There is a stabilizing member connected to the gripping member.
However, none of these prior attempts provide a utensil that can mitigate the negative effects on using such a utensil caused by the medical affliction as described herein.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide for a novel design of a utensil that can counteract or assist in the mitigation of the physical effects of the medical conditions described herein on an individual performing task such as using such utensil, eating and the like.
It is another object of the present invention to provide for a utensil that can progressive assist with the physical therapy of the user.